A plus to survival rate

Marcus

I can remember vividly those jagged rows of yellowish, red teeth flashing at me. If not for the moves I remembered in one of those fighting games, and my will to live, I might have not survived if I were to be bitten by that.

Though, I might have pushed myself too much during the previous level. Fighting while climbing up flight if stairs was a tough thing to do, especially when the monster that chased me is a spider type. Those spindly legs made of shiny metals could kill me in one fell swoop, but it's less terrifying compared to its face. About the description... I believe I have explained it above.

After fighting for my dear life, my body aches all over when I wake up from my lucid dream. I never knew that physical capabilities are related between reality and dream. Though I heard somewhere that if you die in your lucid dream, you'll die in real life.

I'll need to improve my stamina somehow. Which was why... I started personal stamina training on my own, while getting myself involved with one of the martial arts clubs in my college, judo.

Since the night I realized that I have been saving a real human, I have been taking the task of trudging through the mazes seriously. I too have made some changes throughout my daily schedules; from being oblivious with the outside news to paying close attention to it, and from having little to nothing martial arts skills to honing several skills all at once.

I wasn’t planning to die anytime soon, not when I am still waiting for my favourite manga to serialize into an anime. That was why I rearranged my schedule to make time for me to learn martial arts in university.

Another obvious change in my life which I never expected myself to see is that the fact which I am originally in the go-home club but now I enrolled myself in a martial arts club, just to train myself.

“Oomph!” I exclaimed as I rolled down on the maple flooring of the university dojo. I was lucky that the flooring is soft. If I were to fall face first on the concrete floor, I might need to go to the infirmary after this.

The one who tackled me until I fell flat on the ground burst into a laughter and shook his head. “I see your base is still weak, huh? Stabilize your stance, transfer all the weight to your legs.”

“If transferring weights is as easy as that, I would have done so a long time ago, Senior Christopher.” I snorted. Why is every teacher, be it in stories or in real life, would give advices like it is easy to follow?

People won’t be falling behind if the explanation is easy to implement.

Though, it depends from one person to another in terms of their level of understanding.

Hearing my retort, he hollered another short laugh, before extending his hand to me. I accepted his extended hand. Senior Christopher pulled me up from the floor and helped me adjust my disoriented judo robe.

Christopher Aizen, the president for the judo club in my university, who is also a senior in my course, hollered with a huge smile plastered on his face while he trained me. Because I entered the club late, and I was particularly the smallest among the club members, he volunteered himself in training me personally for the first few weeks (The club functions three times a week.) until I get used to the basics.

He is a mix between a Japanese and a Nordic. That’s why, even though he possessed Asian facial features; a pair of hawk shaped raven eyes and short pitch-black wavy hair, his bodily proportions are inherited from his parents on the Nordic side, tall and muscular. To add, his kind personality equals out all the intimidating aura his body emits. Even now as he advised me on what to do to improve my skills, he was smiling kindly to me even though I am just a beginner and a newbie in the judo club at that. With that personality and that body, or course, he is immensely popular with the girls.  

Though, there’s a reason why he is a national gold medallist in Judo. His fighting style is more of a one-shot-one-kill style, especially with that heavy body, so you can particularly guess what happen if I were to go against him.

A loud grunt escaped my mouth when Christopher decided to be on the aggro side and tackled me to the ground. My back is in a lot of pain, but after getting thrown like that for over 300 times already, I'm used to it. Only after being thrown to the ground for an ungodly amount of time, was when I somehow managed to see the pattern of his movement and how to act accordingly against what's coming to me. Though, weight is still the issue.

I dragged myself up and shook my head a bit trying to settle down the vertigo attacking my senses. After I managed to somehow gain stability of my view, I braced myself for another attack.

In other people's eyes, my condition might look pathetic, but for someone who treated martial arts as merely a movement in video games, I can say that wanting to learn martial arts and implement them in real life is an improvement upon itself.

I was about ready to attack again when Christopher suddenly hollered, "okay, that's enough for today!"

I immediately stopped. My foot skids forward a bit to hold in my body's inertia. After balancing myself, I threw my senior a confused look.

Christopher was sauntering towards me. With a wide smile, he patted my shoulders and said, "Go home and rest. we'll continue next time."

My eyes fluttered at him. Now that the training has ended, somehow, the fatigue finally caught onto me. I can feel the pain usurping in every fibre of my muscles.

“Your movements are still shabby but eh, it’s not too bad today compared to before.” Christopher flashed another smile at me. I replied with a snicker.

 He then withdrew his hand and walked away from me towards a person standing not too far from us at the edge of the court. If my memory serves me right, that person is the vice president for the Judo club. What is his name again? Eclis Troye maybe?

"Eclis." Christopher’s voice echoed from afar. So, his name is indeed Eclis.

The two of them proceeded to talk about something inaudible to my ears. They're probably talking about something related to the club. I retracted my battle stance and tugged the front of my Judo uniform, relaxing myself with a deep, long sigh.

The sky was tainted with purple and orange hues. Might be because I was so into wanting to tackle him down, I didn't realize the time.

While Christopher was talking with Eclis, I dragged myself towards the changing room and peeled off my judo uniform to change it into my casual outfit. Ugh, I sweated a lot. I might need to have a quick shower after all.

“Thank you so much for today’s lesson.” I said to him while I sling my bag on my shoulders after putting my robe inside. Nodding my head as a gesture of respect towards my seniors in this club has been something I’m used to doing after being taught of it the first thing when I enrolled in the club.

Senior Christopher replied with a wide smile. “No biggie. It’s my duty as your senior to teach you what you want to know. If you have anything you wanted to ask, feel free to contact me.”

“Alright.” I broke into a smile and nodded my head down again. I also nodded my head to Eclis, because he is a senior and a vice president too at that, but I have a feeling that Eclis might not like me, sort of.

***

Christopher

“I’ll be going then.” Marcus curtly bows down his head low to Christopher. He assumed the exact same gesture towards Eclis, which was shrugged with a lacklustre head bob from him.

Marcus then walked away from them.

Somehow, Christopher could see the annoyance in Eclis’ expression getting more obvious as the time passed by. He refrained from asking anything before, but this time was just too much.

“Eclis, do you despise him or anything? That kid Marcus?”

Eclis darted his eyes to Christopher. “In fact, I do. I feel like he’s stealing you away from me or some sort.”

Christopher flinched. What had gotten into his best friend’s mind for him to say that?

“Wait, you love me?” Christopher asked, showing his inert talent of being extremely dense and aloof in most part of life. To be exact, in anything related to relationships between humans, that is.

“That is not the point.” Eclis showed an expression like he just saw a pig eating its own poop. “I mean, why did you suddenly want to teach that kid martial arts? He couldn’t even tackle you properly even after training for almost two months with us. I’m starting to think of him as pathetic, you know.”

“Two months, eight times. He joined the club’s activities only once a week. You do know that he is not even a member of this club, and only joined to learn the arts. Besides…” Christopher paused a bit. His raven eyes gazed in the direction where Marcus just walked away, hinting a stir of unknown emotions inside that black hue.

“Despite that pathetic skill and physical condition, those orange eyes are burning with desire for survival.” Christopher then grinned. “There’s no way I wouldn’t like him if he showed me that kind of spirit! It’s rare to find someone like him these days."

Eclis heaved a deep sigh and shook his head. “You muscle brained idiot…” He said, before cracking a gentle smile towards his best friend.